Monday, November 12, 2007

Sparks Circus 1920's #1 (From Buckles)


Scan000010446, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Elephant Empresses in the back yard prior to Spec in 1925,

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Empresses?

Buckles, you've told us repeatedly that the plural of Empress is Empressi.

Anonymous said...

Dave,
I didn't know you took Latin in high school.

Anonymous said...

An interesting position of the old girl's beak.

Anonymous said...

I just noticed that gal has peacock plumage on her head dress.

Anonymous said...

P.S. "On the plumage" I aways thought that was about as popular as a camel back trunk.

Buckles said...

My dad told me that when he worked for Cheerful Gardner on the Barnes Show they had three howdah elephants in Spec with ladies wearing these type gowns and headpieces.
They were stationed in all three rings while spec proceeded around the track. The Prima Dona (vocalist)on the center elephant, sang throughout and all three were choreographed to turn various directions from time to time.
He said he worked "Jewel" in one of the end rings and as simple as it sounds, never once was Cheerful satisfied with his ability to point her in the right direction at the right time.
The walk from the back door to the menagerie was always burdened by hearing how inept and incompetent he was.
Now that I think about it, he was 18 at the time, the same age I was when I worked my first elephant "Barbara" with Kelly-Miller in 1953.

Anonymous said...

Note to Bob Kitto:

You didn't know I took Latin?

I'll have you know I spent four of the happiest years of my life in first year Latin.

P S: No, that wasn't the gag that killed vaudeville but it came right after the one about "What? And Quit Show Business?"

Anonymous said...

Subject Mr.Gardener/Bill Sr.
Quoting Mark Twain
"When I left home as a young man and returned several years later, I was just amazed at how much smarter my parents had become.